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GROANING

 Scripture citations are to the New International Version, British text, unless noted otherwise.

The whole creation has been groaning as in the pains of childbirth right up to the present time.

(Romans 8: 22)

 

 

SOMEONE HAS OBSERVED that history is simply one thing after another.

It’s also one long collective lament a ‘groaning’ as the Apostle Paul says of mankind, identified as ‘creation’ in our highlighted text from Romans 8.

 Within this broad tapestry of woe, our individual lives throb with pains of one sort and another.

 

Not that there are no joys. Given the right circumstances, health and resources, life can be wonderfully happy and productive.

 

But in general, life is inherently unsatisfactory.

 

For one thing, it is inconsistent in quality and, for another, well . . . it’s terminal. Our own death casts its shadow backwards, and as we age our grunts and groans reinforce the message that we are irresistibly on the way out.

 

 Humanity has for thousands of years been moving through a cacophony of troubles, from point A to point B, never really understanding where they’re going.

 

Most historians would probably laugh at the notion of the inevitability of history, that events have meaning beyond the temporal that history has direction. Modern philosophy lumps mankind in with all other forms of life as a random expression of the struggle for survival, a crazy ineluctable race from conception to death, with a dash of intelligence thrown in.

 

In short, the prevailing view of modernity is that human existence itself is without meaning.

 

 That’s the theory, at least. But in spite of it, people continue to behave as if events do have meaning. And so they make plans beyond the limits of their own lives for their children, for the shaping of social order and great buildings and constructions, and they fret about life-threatening dangers which may arise long after they are dead, such as climate change. The Creator has built into mankind hope for the future a legacy of the fact that man was originally made to live for ever.

 

 Pangs . . .

With a loud collective sigh, humanity has been engaged in the long and tiresome push of bringing to birth a new order of affairs. The struggles associated with the effort are the experiences with sin, tragedies, and death. But mankind does not itself know the glorious object in view. God’s plans and purposes are not open to scrutiny by those who have no faith in the Word of God. Subjected to ‘frustration’ (v. 20) and in ‘bondage to decay’ (v. 21), unbelieving humanity will never entirely succeed in its endeavours.

 

 It is not possible to see in detail a future beyond one’s own span of life. But as in childbirth, the final ‘push’ for humanity will arrive at the appropriate point of time. The unequalled period of trouble to come described by Jesus in Matthew 24: 21 as the most severe conflict in history will be a concentrated essence of the woes and heartaches that have marked all of history. It’s impossible to say when this will occur, except that like birth it is inevitable, being the logical consequence of mankind’s general resistance to God’s will. The cataclysm will end the struggle and the wait, and will usher in a new order of affairs under Christ, to the eternal blessing of all mankind (Romans 8: 21): ‘The creation itself will be liberated from its bondage to decay and brought into the glorious freedom of God.’

 

 If you troll through the articles on our site, you will find more detailed information on this topic.

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